Yossi

Directed by Eytan Fox, Yossi follows the story of Dr.Guttmann, A somewhat introverted person who doesn’t seem to have much going on in his life. That is until he recognizes a woman who entered his hospital as the mother of his former lover who died in battle. After telling this woman of her sons last moments, Dr. Guttmann is swooped away with the possibility of new love in the form of Tom, a travelling soldier.

From a technical standpoint, specifically the camera work, this film was shot with the intention of following this one characters journey.  Very many of the shots are medium shots taken at eye level, as if to be following Dr. Guttmann through the events of the film at a personal level. In relation to the character of Dr. Guttmann, the camera follows him in a slow and steady manner, as if to emphasize the dismal nature of his life at that moment.

In relation to the themes given in our assignment, my first reaction would be to relate the above mentioned camera technique with the theme of stillness. Stillness from the physical standpoint of lack of movement in the shots and stillness from a narrative point with the static nature of Yossi Guttmanns life.  Personally, I feel like the narrative and its cinematic techniques relate to movement in a much deeper sense. To me, Yossi is a story about moving forward. While the beginning of the film implies stillness in the story, within the context of the whole film, Yossi is slowly progressing as a character with the introduction of the love interest Tom. Movement is brought out through the progression of Yossi’s psyche, and the camera (and the audience) follow him every step of his slow and steady journey. Keeping this in mind, Director Eytan Fox has done a marvelous job of letting us tag along on Yossi’s journey to escape his dull life and get another shot at love.

As a personal comment, I chose this film in particular because I wanted to show the theme of movement in a very subtle if not obscure way. While nothing too dramatic is going on with the camera in these shots, I felt like this was a very interesting way of portraying the movement through character progression by having the camera constantly in close proximity to Yossi.

Reference: Imdb-2014-IMDb.com[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1934269/?ref_=nv_sr_1][Last accessed on 20/01/2014]